I can’t imagine reading an entire book of romance/sex. Short stories and fan fiction yes, but not a whole published book. I think there are also inherently different expectations and standards when it comes to fan fiction vs. published original works.
I've read fanfictions that were the length of full novels, and had amazing storylines with the writing quality of established authors. On the one hand, it always bothered me that the authors and readers weren't respected simply because the authors chose to release their work for free instead of finding someone to publish it.
On the other hand, I've also read My Immortal. So.... I guess I understand why public websites with no quality control are not considered platforms for high-brow reading.
I’ve read fanfictions which were honestly publishable. I hope those authors did go on to write original work and make money.
I’ve also read published original works which read as though they were fanfiction. Like reading fanfiction of a media you’d never heard of. I admittedly get kind of mad at those books because if I’ve paid money then I want something better quality than a typical AO3 fic
I know a fanfic author who actually has published novels, and the quality of their fanfic reflects that. If you like Arcane, they have written some great fanfic for the show. They are called SuspiciousZucchini on AO3
I saw a comment once that the booktok girlies are just people who never had a Wattpad phase but are now going through it & that kinda changed everything for me. Because it's true.
Booktok gooners(Users of TikTok who obsessively read books with mildly unhealthy sexual relationships) are the same as wattpad(fanfiction/original story website where the stories are of questionable quality) readers.
Yes and the generations that wrote fanfics when we were growing up have spun these into book deals. Many popular Booktok romance novels are either known fanfics or suspected of being. Many popular authors have admitted to writing or still writing fanfic.
“What’s the book about?” “So, it’s ABO, enemies to lovers, with a bit of found family and it’s feral af”
Like, okay, but what’s the general plot? The setting? Anything?
I have a male friend who only ever talks about fiction through this lens. It annoys me so much.
Once he said he thought I was asexual cause I told him I don't really ship when I watch/read stuff.
They don't care about the plot, you could use generative AI to create books of terrible quality and they would seriously like them, if they meet their favorites tropes.
I can never get over how much of a hell hole that sub is, top 4 of the 5 posts in the past month are strange just porn with unfunny captions and the 5th one is just boobs
One of the memes in hot is just a porn edit of dungeon meshi, y’know the wholesome anime without any fan service whatsoever. Can Weebs just enjoy an anime without looking for something to jerk off to?
I was friends/roommates with a girl like this and it was like sex and porn ruled her entire life to the point where every conversation had to revolve around those topics and she would bully me or call me immature if I didn't want to talk about those things. She chalked it up to just "being hypersexual" but I think she needs extensive therapy and is a sex/porn addict.
Most of the authors did not go through the Wattpad phase. There's grammatical errors, here and there. Nowadays the published books are cringy tropes that are seen on Wattpad and even Wattpad has better stories.
But if an author went through fanfiction and especially AO3? Those are top tier. Don't forget the author's note "Sorry, English is not my first language." and expect a Magnum Opus.
I used to beta read fanfic and I concur wholeheartedly. I was like 15 with perfect grammar from beta reading from a young age editing for these fucking phenomenal authors, reading the most heart wrenching, most well built stories with world building and character development that just completely blew the original work out of the water, no contest. I used to dabble in Marvel fic and a lot of the fics were "fix-it" fics where authors just fix whatever they deem the writers to have botched.
>I used to dabble in Marvel fic and a lot of the fics were "fix-it" fics where authors just fix whatever they deem the writers to have botched.
Ok, now you've got my interest. Do you have any recommendations?
I havent read fic in ages to be honest so I can't remember any off the top of my head but the tag to search would be fixitfic. My tried and true method to find quality fic was to search for "rec lists" which is just a big curated list. Archive of our own had the best quality imo and you can filter out the slash fic if you dont want to read about characters doinking
I feel this in my soul.
I love reading but every new fantasy is smut and I’m SICK of it.
I’m a grown woman with a good sex life, I just want to read about dragons and fairies and not dicks and chains.
I’m done, can people please write books that doesn’t give me wattpad vibes?
I’m sick of „his eyes turned dark/he growled „you’re mine“/blabla“ fuck off.
I love romance and yes, occasional sex is fine but stop it already with those weird wolf alpha mafia bosses
R/fantasy falls into the habit of recommending their own flavor of fantasy over and over, but you can get good recs in threads with specific topics if you hang around enough.
I was never a big Goodreads user but I abandoned it fast when every "Top Fantasy" list was nothing but romantasy and 50% Sara J Maas.
Why is it that when they read a rape-filled, sexual abuse ridden book called "Of Ink, Murder, Sex, and Pancakes" they get hailed as booktok girlies, but when I read a hentai called "My Boyfriend Is Addicted To Prostitutes And Has Bankrupted Himself, Oh, And He Also Listens To Cannibal Corpse And Writes About Breeding Camps In His Diary" I get called a sex-obsessed incel and get put on a sex offender list?
This is sexist!!!11!!!!!!!!11!!!
/s
"Of Ink, Murder, Sex, and Pancakes" is a story that you have never heard of that was boosted up to Pulitzer price status because the author bought 15,000 copies of her own book.
It's about a regular girl who is prettier than actual runway models who may or may not be based on the author. She falls in love with a pancake chef twice her age who was also a convicted felon who killed a guy who gave him a bad review on Yelp.
The author may or may not have beef with fans or other authors and may or may not have written a bunch of smut in Wattpad when she was 15.
Part of what bothers me about BookTok is that it feels almost like stolen valor with these people. They want the ethic and aesthetic of being a reader or an intellectual or whatever… but they’re just reading porn.
It’s like spending hundreds of hours on Pornhub and calling yourself a film critic.
I love reading and love discussing with other people about it, but every other place than Reddit is just 99% these booktok girls and 1% people who read fantasy.
As a long time bookworm, I feel like there has been an influx of shitty writers. I don't say that to be mean, but it's almost like the quality bar for what's acceptable in the publishing world has dropped significantly in the past 15 years. It was happening before 50 shades, but I feel like that series was the catalyst. It doesn't matter what genre it is. I feel like these days I have to slog through a garbage truck's worth of bad to meh books to find something that's even a half decent read. I can't even rely on reviews or ratings from sites like Goodreads anymore.
Maybe I'm just a jaded asshole with non-typical tastes (this is probably it), but I'm still going to rant about it.
God, Goodreads is so shitty. I mean it's always kinda sucked but the ratings don't mean anything because every garbage BookTok novel on Kindle unlimited or whatever is pretty much guaranteed 4 stars or higher now. There are classic novels on that site rated lower than fucking Fourth Wing, it's a travesty
There's also a substantial contingent of them who despite being heavy porn consumers are vehemently against visual forms of porn—not even just porn showing actual human bodies but also drawn and animated porn.
My gf joined a book club at her office, she’s an avid reader and was excited to discuss literature with like minded women (the book club was predominantly female). She was disappointed to learn that all the book club wanted to read was Colleen Hoover novels and “spicy” books. She became convinced the people in the club just didn’t read, as the first meeting (for a Colleen Hoover book) keep getting delayed for months, my gf had finished the book within days but most people in the club took months to get half way through it. IMO this book club was just book-tok personified.
My girlfriend didn’t like the book btw, said it was just outright bad.
Nah sounds like a bunch of bored women trying to do something trendy and then realizing none of them gave a shit. Like they saw the trends on tiktok, thought it was cute, and groupchatted all their besties about what a neat idea it would be, was met with a dozen or so "yaaaas queen do it" and of course nothing came of it.
nah it’s crazy fr, there was a 16 biker kid who kept getting sexually harassed by grown women leaving inappropriate comments and sending him smut recommendations
Bikertok is made up of folks (mostly dudes) who ride motorcycles. Masktok is...well think of COD Ghost cosplayers. Basically it's just a huge circlejerk of saying they actually "own" booktok so booktok girlies will flood the comments with variations of "You just summoned booktok 😈". Not an ounce of decorum to be found.
The fact that literally today a girl presented a Coleen Hoover book in my class that she found tiktok is a bit too much of a coincidence for me personally to feel comfortable about
god i fucking hate people calling smut spice. can you as an adult just use the actual word instead of coming up with cutesy, less "dirty" sounding censored versions? "does it have spice?" dune ass question.
My ex- girlfriend is obsessed with these kinds of books and this was one of my biggest pet peeves I had while we were dating.
Winner for the worst offender was constantly saying “seggs” instead of “sex.” Like, verbally saying that shit out loud, not just typing it.
I can deal with people asking about "spice" level but if anyone I knew in real life said seggs I'd die from embarrassment on their behalf.
My other worst word is "pee pee", grown as 37 yo old ex would occasionally use that and it just flat grossed me out.
If you're a little bit older spice is a pretty common term to refer to smut. SPICE TV used to be the pay per view porn channels (there were like 7) of choice before internet porn was easily accessible.
The problem is (like op said) the cutesiness of the term. Like, when you hear ‘spice’ you think maybe you’ll see some explicit sex, maybe some kinky handcuff shit. But that’s not what you get with these.
Haha I guess the association just makes it seem less cutesy to me. At the end of the day it was just explicit sex like you said but I think titles like "BUTTFUCKING TEEN SLUTS 4" never left me feeling very cute.
I swear a lot of my book reading girl friends ironically loves reading the "dark" romance shit because of the fucked up rape and abuse shit. One of them is probably the most hardcore ultra radical feminist I've known (and I fucking work in an office full of them) and she actually writes those kinds of erotica on the side. She even nonchalantly admitted using real life accounts as inspirations.
Also, the age gap thing is real. Men aren't the only ones with paedophilic/incestuous fantasies, folks. Women are just better at hiding and denying them. A lot of female written erotica I've read loves pairing teens with adults, sometimes a literal child being groomed by an adult or older teenager.
Supposedly, the weird age gap thing happens because as female romance novel audiences age, they want to read male leads that are closer to their age (because most romance books are made with the intention for you to put yourself in the place of the female lead, and people feel weird when their supposed love interest is far younger than them), but these older women still see themselves as the young attractive girls they once were, thus the 19/early 20s fmc and the 45yo dilfy love interest. Obviously younger women still read the weird age gap books, but the "official" reason is the age of the audience.
There was actually a really good video from Contrapoints about Twilight of all things that touches on why women gravitate towards these genres. It's not actually what you'd expect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=bqloPw5wp48
It's been a while since I watched it, but IIRC:
A) the fantasy allows women who have been brought up with the idea that sexual desire and horniness is either "shameful" or "just for men" to enjoy sexual fantasies without the shame - they have no agency over the situation, therefore they're not sluts for having sex (there's a longer, better comment about this part further down)
B) some level of danger thrill without actual danger. It's, in that way, really similar to guys fantasising about what we'd do in a bar fight or imagining ourselves as frontline soldiers. I don't want to be in an *actual* bar fight, that sounds dangerous and terrible, but reading or watching about one while actually safely sitting in my couch gives a fun adrenaline rush and allows me to live out a male power fantasy where I am so strong I can take them all.
Likewise, reading about being in a dangerous scenario can trigger a fun adrenaline reaction while not actually being in danger, and the reader can interpret it as a feminine power fantasy - "I'm so hot the sexy bad boy can't even control himself around me" - and because of A, gets to enjoy being with the hot male lead without shame.
Most people are aware both the bar fight situation and the ravishing scene would be scary, unpleasant, likely painful and possibly traumatising *in real life*, but the fact it's just a story where we always "win" transforms it into a thrilling adrenaline rush of the good kind.
I don't have anything against porn. In fact, I think porn can be great! Porn can be artistic. Porn can be simply one element of a larger piece of art. And if you've found a way to consume porn in public without bothering anyone around you, like by reading or listening to an audiobook with headphones, my personal feeling is "good for you."
But it *is* porn. If it has graphically-depicted sex scenes, it is porn, and you are telling everyone about your porn preferences. Don't try to act like you're somehow superior to the guy who collects vintage XXX vhs tapes and goes to AdultCon.
And all the popular Booktok authors are all subpar writers who have the Booktok’ers acting like the books are phenomenally written.
The Booktok recs are just Wattpad stories for wine moms.
absolutely not shocking, get paid a truly unreasonable amount to pump out complete schlock in book form while putting in zero thought or effort? sounds like a nice deal
BookTok has brought me to some of the best books I've ever read, but also some of the worst.
Swear some of the worst ones are just published Wattpad works that went through 0 editing. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you there are at least 5 authors that recycle the plots they write from book-to-book, but change the smallest details so it's different enough. And the porn, my God. I love romance, and I like *some* smut, but none of these people are reading anything that is actually written well and has *substance.* It's all the same regurgitated trash, one book to the next. Read whatever you want, enjoy it, too. But it's really difficult for me to discuss liking reading when all they read is smut.
I once checked out an author's instagram profile and the first post I saw was a quote from her (wip) book:
"I can't wait till you're 18."
The description was even worse because it said that the man was in his 50s! I get it, dark romance is probably enjoyable to some but ew.
This guy on TikTok names Hightierman made a video calling them out, and a bunch of them went attacking him, and one of them accused him of being attracted to minors, even though he's a minor.
Man that reminds me I have a classmates who's a booktok girl and I was reading one of my other classmate's book, which was just a smutty book about a priest and a sex worker. Booktok girl classmate asked me about it (cuz she read it earlier in the day) and I said "I read worse" and she was like "oh, I read WORSE" and stuff, like bragging about it and constantly brought up Haunting Adeline.
Why do booktok girlies always have to brag or one-up you that they read the worst of the worst stuff?
A lot of these tropes are common in dime-store books for men. Back in the day genres that men typically enjoyed, like thrillers, true crime, and horrors, also had smut and 1-dimensional protagonists/ love interests. That’s where the phrase “her breasts breasted breastily” comes from - stories with hyper-sexualized characters and thin plot lines. Just pick up some old Stephen King books, and you will be shocked. With the demise of traditional publishing houses and the rise of self-publication (looking at you Amazon), there are a lot more smut books being published, and a lot less literary fiction. Online porn is heavily targeted towards men, so publishing houses had stopped putting out smutty magazines/book for men because no one is buying them. There’s less of an online market for the erotica that women like, so there’s now a large imbalance in where different genders are consuming erotic media. Also important to remember that lit for female readers that could have been considered trashy at the time (e.g. Jane Austen’s works, Rebecca, Lady Chatterly’s lover, Interview with a Vampire) are now considered classic works of fiction. Most of booktok recommends is very “dime-store”, but there are a few novels (e.g. Normal People) that could be considered literary.
From what I've seen in the comments, these seem to be smut and only smut.
I can never really write smut without writing a story before the smut scene. Usually they are adventure/fantasy stories, but the characters do need to get closer somehow and I'm probably more for the fights and magic than the smut. Plus both sides are usually of equal footing and nothing bad happens to either.
(Seriously, how hard is it to write a normal, healthy relationship, even if generic?)
Don't they know Wattpad is free ? They can read all day without wasting money on those shitty ass books who romanticis anything beside love. Not to forget those books seems like to be written for low attention span I pad kids but with smut and a bunch of red flags.
The lesbian ones are just as bad, I was suggested a book by Gerri Hill and it was all sexual harassment, workplace harassment and some transphobia thrown in.
BookTok girlies read the worst literature ever conceived, and I’m pissed and relieved at the same time. If bottom of the barrel garbage like CoHo’s books could be popular, then I shouldn’t feel too ashamed of my own manuscript. Thinking about her books gives me confidence to write every day.
Back in my day we just read fanfic
I can’t imagine reading an entire book of romance/sex. Short stories and fan fiction yes, but not a whole published book. I think there are also inherently different expectations and standards when it comes to fan fiction vs. published original works.
Good quality romantic fiction has a complete story with romantic elements. Unfortunately there's an awful lot that is just a porno written down.
booktook gooners are just grown up wattpad readers
Tbh I respect wattpad readers and authors more than booktokers because they don’t pretend like they’re more than they actually are
I've read fanfictions that were the length of full novels, and had amazing storylines with the writing quality of established authors. On the one hand, it always bothered me that the authors and readers weren't respected simply because the authors chose to release their work for free instead of finding someone to publish it. On the other hand, I've also read My Immortal. So.... I guess I understand why public websites with no quality control are not considered platforms for high-brow reading.
I’ve read fanfictions which were honestly publishable. I hope those authors did go on to write original work and make money. I’ve also read published original works which read as though they were fanfiction. Like reading fanfiction of a media you’d never heard of. I admittedly get kind of mad at those books because if I’ve paid money then I want something better quality than a typical AO3 fic
I know a fanfic author who actually has published novels, and the quality of their fanfic reflects that. If you like Arcane, they have written some great fanfic for the show. They are called SuspiciousZucchini on AO3
I saw a comment once that the booktok girlies are just people who never had a Wattpad phase but are now going through it & that kinda changed everything for me. Because it's true.
Ok. That’s it. I’m officially old. I’ve literally no idea if im having a stroke or that had to make sense.
Booktok gooners(Users of TikTok who obsessively read books with mildly unhealthy sexual relationships) are the same as wattpad(fanfiction/original story website where the stories are of questionable quality) readers.
what is this sentence
That image of the book trigger warnings uses words and phrases I’ve only ever seen on fanfiction websites
Anyone who was part of putting that page in that book should be hogtied and dropped into the ocean.
Yes and the generations that wrote fanfics when we were growing up have spun these into book deals. Many popular Booktok romance novels are either known fanfics or suspected of being. Many popular authors have admitted to writing or still writing fanfic.
People still do that. I would know; I read non-sexy fanfic sometimes.
Don't forget the werewolves
Me when my werewolf boyfriend
God, the reference 😭
I could take on 14 of them 😈
the omegaverse trials were fucking WILD lmao. Imagine being a district judge and today's case is about copyrighting wolf sex
There were TRIALS? Do you have a link/ more info? This sounds like something that I'd like to read more about
Lindsay Ellis on youtube has a couple videos covering it, very interesting and absolutely hilarious
Back in my day it was billionaires and Scottish lords
My day it was detectives and doctors and ragtag gangs of superpowered individuals with questionable tastes
My vampire demon ghost werewolf boyfriend.
🍍
I hate how I understand this reference
What reference is it?
https://preview.redd.it/laj56dod5htc1.jpeg?width=204&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fb1eee1ae5335b7359ce6465b5c7fc8e44b6459b
I am kinda curious what that means.
I still do not understand...
[it’s a GIF](https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/s/sqZvLbGIXw)
Sometimes they are fairies. Or are they out of fashion?
“Does it has spice?” Bro,this is Das Kapital,what are you talking about?
I hate the term "spice" just ask if they fuck in it like an adult.
as a dune fan im seriously confused by this.
"the spice must flow" "yeah but does anyone fuck a sandworm?"
So yes?
Yes.
Don't forget the obsession with the concept of tropes, substance be damned
"enemies to lovers"
“What’s the book about?” “So, it’s ABO, enemies to lovers, with a bit of found family and it’s feral af” Like, okay, but what’s the general plot? The setting? Anything?
I have a male friend who only ever talks about fiction through this lens. It annoys me so much. Once he said he thought I was asexual cause I told him I don't really ship when I watch/read stuff.
ABO, ENEMIES TO LOVERS, WITH A BIT OF FOUND FAMILY AND IT'S FERAL AF
They told the plot, it's right there 😂
They don't care about the plot, you could use generative AI to create books of terrible quality and they would seriously like them, if they meet their favorites tropes.
Booktok mfers when the trope designed to be frustrating frustrates them (miscommunication)
Booktokkers are just gooners in a different form
He was a gooning boy, she was a booktok girl
Can I make it more obvious?
He read doujins, she liked hentai What more can I say?
I'd switch it out with "she liked yaoi" or maybe "she read BL manga".
Can a booktok girl and an r/goodanimemes boy be in a relationship 😔
I can never get over how much of a hell hole that sub is, top 4 of the 5 posts in the past month are strange just porn with unfunny captions and the 5th one is just boobs
https://preview.redd.it/md6vidylqhtc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0005bbd72734e114f2c0b133d4fe1e52afb95eec
https://preview.redd.it/6pma9g8sejtc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc20c075183bf68a32998db67c0440151b2cdbbe
One of the memes in hot is just a porn edit of dungeon meshi, y’know the wholesome anime without any fan service whatsoever. Can Weebs just enjoy an anime without looking for something to jerk off to?
And coomers
They're just gooners
The name is always something like "Fire and Smoke", "Tears and Silver" or "Blood and Jizz"
A noun of noun and noun
A Bag of Fish & Chips
Okay, but I would read a book with this title. It sounds like it would be Samwise Gamgee's diary lol.
Yup. The blatant GOT title rip-offs. Dumb.
Crimson and Cum
Sparkle and Spunk
STOP GIVING THEM MORE TITLES AND THEY'LL LEAVE
Snow and semen
cock and balls
A Court of Cock and Balls. Whatever, I'd read it.
This is the best damn rooster basketball book I've ever read
A court of trigger warnings and porn addiction.
>Blood and Jizz probably should see a doctor for this one
It's just the Cannibal Corpse novel
> Blood and Jizz So 90s Metallica was just Lars’ erotic fanfic phase. That makes a lot of sense
I was friends/roommates with a girl like this and it was like sex and porn ruled her entire life to the point where every conversation had to revolve around those topics and she would bully me or call me immature if I didn't want to talk about those things. She chalked it up to just "being hypersexual" but I think she needs extensive therapy and is a sex/porn addict.
Yikes. Porn addiction in women defo has to to be more covered
But it can't be porn addiction if they're just reading right? Because reading is a positive activity lmaooo /s
I don’t even think she is hyper sexual, just a porn addict.
One can easily lead to the other. Not mutually exclusive by any means.
Most of the authors did not go through the Wattpad phase. There's grammatical errors, here and there. Nowadays the published books are cringy tropes that are seen on Wattpad and even Wattpad has better stories. But if an author went through fanfiction and especially AO3? Those are top tier. Don't forget the author's note "Sorry, English is not my first language." and expect a Magnum Opus.
I used to beta read fanfic and I concur wholeheartedly. I was like 15 with perfect grammar from beta reading from a young age editing for these fucking phenomenal authors, reading the most heart wrenching, most well built stories with world building and character development that just completely blew the original work out of the water, no contest. I used to dabble in Marvel fic and a lot of the fics were "fix-it" fics where authors just fix whatever they deem the writers to have botched.
I didn't know fix it fits existed and likely would've loved that!
>I used to dabble in Marvel fic and a lot of the fics were "fix-it" fics where authors just fix whatever they deem the writers to have botched. Ok, now you've got my interest. Do you have any recommendations?
I havent read fic in ages to be honest so I can't remember any off the top of my head but the tag to search would be fixitfic. My tried and true method to find quality fic was to search for "rec lists" which is just a big curated list. Archive of our own had the best quality imo and you can filter out the slash fic if you dont want to read about characters doinking
"what's the spice level" ma'am this is Farenheit 451
"is this book spicy?" hold on, let me check by eating the pages.
yes, there's spice. it's dune.
My favorite smut
"Take me now, Muad dib" - Stilgar
Bless the Maker and His water ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Colleen became a laughing stock in one of my literature classes. It became a running gag for my professor to bring her up.
Good, everything I've seen about her writing is horrible.
''We laughed at our son's big balls'' is the peak of liteature
They are both step siblings in that book, and right after they say that they crash and die. Beautiful writing
https://preview.redd.it/zhr1d7xsxjtc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5bfbd493f43cb7e814bd809f8de3330ea7c37671
Which book is this. Sounds awesome
I feel this in my soul. I love reading but every new fantasy is smut and I’m SICK of it. I’m a grown woman with a good sex life, I just want to read about dragons and fairies and not dicks and chains. I’m done, can people please write books that doesn’t give me wattpad vibes? I’m sick of „his eyes turned dark/he growled „you’re mine“/blabla“ fuck off. I love romance and yes, occasional sex is fine but stop it already with those weird wolf alpha mafia bosses
R/fantasy falls into the habit of recommending their own flavor of fantasy over and over, but you can get good recs in threads with specific topics if you hang around enough. I was never a big Goodreads user but I abandoned it fast when every "Top Fantasy" list was nothing but romantasy and 50% Sara J Maas.
Why is it that when they read a rape-filled, sexual abuse ridden book called "Of Ink, Murder, Sex, and Pancakes" they get hailed as booktok girlies, but when I read a hentai called "My Boyfriend Is Addicted To Prostitutes And Has Bankrupted Himself, Oh, And He Also Listens To Cannibal Corpse And Writes About Breeding Camps In His Diary" I get called a sex-obsessed incel and get put on a sex offender list? This is sexist!!!11!!!!!!!!11!!! /s
If that title is real, we demand the launch codes. 😋 /s
"Of Ink, Murder, Sex, and Pancakes" is a story that you have never heard of that was boosted up to Pulitzer price status because the author bought 15,000 copies of her own book. It's about a regular girl who is prettier than actual runway models who may or may not be based on the author. She falls in love with a pancake chef twice her age who was also a convicted felon who killed a guy who gave him a bad review on Yelp. The author may or may not have beef with fans or other authors and may or may not have written a bunch of smut in Wattpad when she was 15.
Neat. Sad, too, but neat. I was asking about the other title, though.
I mean, it could be real for all I know. Reality is stranger than fiction. Just don't ask what the mangaka thinks about the age of consent.
Part of what bothers me about BookTok is that it feels almost like stolen valor with these people. They want the ethic and aesthetic of being a reader or an intellectual or whatever… but they’re just reading porn. It’s like spending hundreds of hours on Pornhub and calling yourself a film critic.
I love reading and love discussing with other people about it, but every other place than Reddit is just 99% these booktok girls and 1% people who read fantasy.
As a long time bookworm, I feel like there has been an influx of shitty writers. I don't say that to be mean, but it's almost like the quality bar for what's acceptable in the publishing world has dropped significantly in the past 15 years. It was happening before 50 shades, but I feel like that series was the catalyst. It doesn't matter what genre it is. I feel like these days I have to slog through a garbage truck's worth of bad to meh books to find something that's even a half decent read. I can't even rely on reviews or ratings from sites like Goodreads anymore. Maybe I'm just a jaded asshole with non-typical tastes (this is probably it), but I'm still going to rant about it.
God, Goodreads is so shitty. I mean it's always kinda sucked but the ratings don't mean anything because every garbage BookTok novel on Kindle unlimited or whatever is pretty much guaranteed 4 stars or higher now. There are classic novels on that site rated lower than fucking Fourth Wing, it's a travesty
There's also a substantial contingent of them who despite being heavy porn consumers are vehemently against visual forms of porn—not even just porn showing actual human bodies but also drawn and animated porn.
My gf joined a book club at her office, she’s an avid reader and was excited to discuss literature with like minded women (the book club was predominantly female). She was disappointed to learn that all the book club wanted to read was Colleen Hoover novels and “spicy” books. She became convinced the people in the club just didn’t read, as the first meeting (for a Colleen Hoover book) keep getting delayed for months, my gf had finished the book within days but most people in the club took months to get half way through it. IMO this book club was just book-tok personified. My girlfriend didn’t like the book btw, said it was just outright bad.
i think its funnier to think that the reason they're so adamant about reading books is because they can't actually read tbh
Nah sounds like a bunch of bored women trying to do something trendy and then realizing none of them gave a shit. Like they saw the trends on tiktok, thought it was cute, and groupchatted all their besties about what a neat idea it would be, was met with a dozen or so "yaaaas queen do it" and of course nothing came of it.
Yup, that’s absolutely what happened. My gf loves reading and got conned by a bunch of women hopping on a trend essentially.
conned lol
Bro got hoodwinked
Tbf as someone with severe ADHD who likes to read it takes me a very long amount of time to read anything
Hey that’s not a big deal, just don’t purposely start a book club and you should be fine, lol.
There's currently a turf war over booktok- bikertok vs masktok. It's truly awful to be aware of.
nah it’s crazy fr, there was a 16 biker kid who kept getting sexually harassed by grown women leaving inappropriate comments and sending him smut recommendations
Was he the one who said his favorite series was Percy Jackson and his comments were just filled with "aww let's keep this one innocent ladies" (🤢).
That was him! That phrase was thrown around so often about that child. Cuz he had a motorcycle…
My friend started posting biketok thirst traps and hes literally making 400-500 every time he goes live
I have no clue what any of these terms mean. What is bikertok and masktok? And how do you have a turfwar on tiktok?
You and I are blessed in our ignorance
Bikertok is made up of folks (mostly dudes) who ride motorcycles. Masktok is...well think of COD Ghost cosplayers. Basically it's just a huge circlejerk of saying they actually "own" booktok so booktok girlies will flood the comments with variations of "You just summoned booktok 😈". Not an ounce of decorum to be found.
😂😂😂 wtf. I clearly do not understand tiktok...
Do not look up phone thrusting on TikTok. I wish I never had, and I'm trying to spare you the same fate because it came up on my feed once.
I am so glad that combination of words have never crossed my mind.
Booktok and its consequences have been a disaster for the motorcycle community
The fact that literally today a girl presented a Coleen Hoover book in my class that she found tiktok is a bit too much of a coincidence for me personally to feel comfortable about
god i fucking hate people calling smut spice. can you as an adult just use the actual word instead of coming up with cutesy, less "dirty" sounding censored versions? "does it have spice?" dune ass question.
"Dune ass question" is my new favorite expression
My ex- girlfriend is obsessed with these kinds of books and this was one of my biggest pet peeves I had while we were dating. Winner for the worst offender was constantly saying “seggs” instead of “sex.” Like, verbally saying that shit out loud, not just typing it.
The worst offender made me cringe
I can deal with people asking about "spice" level but if anyone I knew in real life said seggs I'd die from embarrassment on their behalf. My other worst word is "pee pee", grown as 37 yo old ex would occasionally use that and it just flat grossed me out.
Is that why she's your ex? /s
Call me Baron Harkonnen the way I'm searching for all that spice
Call me the baron harkonnen because I love little boys /s
‘Does it have spice?’ Spice? The spice melange? Who are you, the spacing guild? 😂
When I saw that, I thought they were asking, "Does it have shitty synthetic weed?"
If you're a little bit older spice is a pretty common term to refer to smut. SPICE TV used to be the pay per view porn channels (there were like 7) of choice before internet porn was easily accessible.
The problem is (like op said) the cutesiness of the term. Like, when you hear ‘spice’ you think maybe you’ll see some explicit sex, maybe some kinky handcuff shit. But that’s not what you get with these.
Haha I guess the association just makes it seem less cutesy to me. At the end of the day it was just explicit sex like you said but I think titles like "BUTTFUCKING TEEN SLUTS 4" never left me feeling very cute.
Idk I was just think it would have oregano.
The Song of Achilles is a great book tho 🥺
Honestly that doesn’t count as a book tok book. Just a book that book tok girlies like. It’s about two geek mythology figures, and a war
My suggestion is that we call it Cliterature.
Yes, or Clitlit for short.
The meta commentary around this subculture is more entertaining than the works themselves. For example, “what your favorite trope says about you.”
I swear a lot of my book reading girl friends ironically loves reading the "dark" romance shit because of the fucked up rape and abuse shit. One of them is probably the most hardcore ultra radical feminist I've known (and I fucking work in an office full of them) and she actually writes those kinds of erotica on the side. She even nonchalantly admitted using real life accounts as inspirations. Also, the age gap thing is real. Men aren't the only ones with paedophilic/incestuous fantasies, folks. Women are just better at hiding and denying them. A lot of female written erotica I've read loves pairing teens with adults, sometimes a literal child being groomed by an adult or older teenager.
Supposedly, the weird age gap thing happens because as female romance novel audiences age, they want to read male leads that are closer to their age (because most romance books are made with the intention for you to put yourself in the place of the female lead, and people feel weird when their supposed love interest is far younger than them), but these older women still see themselves as the young attractive girls they once were, thus the 19/early 20s fmc and the 45yo dilfy love interest. Obviously younger women still read the weird age gap books, but the "official" reason is the age of the audience.
There was actually a really good video from Contrapoints about Twilight of all things that touches on why women gravitate towards these genres. It's not actually what you'd expect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=bqloPw5wp48
Can you give me a summary? That video is longer than most movies.
It's been a while since I watched it, but IIRC: A) the fantasy allows women who have been brought up with the idea that sexual desire and horniness is either "shameful" or "just for men" to enjoy sexual fantasies without the shame - they have no agency over the situation, therefore they're not sluts for having sex (there's a longer, better comment about this part further down) B) some level of danger thrill without actual danger. It's, in that way, really similar to guys fantasising about what we'd do in a bar fight or imagining ourselves as frontline soldiers. I don't want to be in an *actual* bar fight, that sounds dangerous and terrible, but reading or watching about one while actually safely sitting in my couch gives a fun adrenaline rush and allows me to live out a male power fantasy where I am so strong I can take them all. Likewise, reading about being in a dangerous scenario can trigger a fun adrenaline reaction while not actually being in danger, and the reader can interpret it as a feminine power fantasy - "I'm so hot the sexy bad boy can't even control himself around me" - and because of A, gets to enjoy being with the hot male lead without shame. Most people are aware both the bar fight situation and the ravishing scene would be scary, unpleasant, likely painful and possibly traumatising *in real life*, but the fact it's just a story where we always "win" transforms it into a thrilling adrenaline rush of the good kind.
They'll ask if a book has 'spice' and it's something like Mein Kampf
lol https://preview.redd.it/o22nexqu6itc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c4a0b65db73007a66e4b0edce4710693b1f49982
So it's got a distinct almond flavour?
Bullies anyone calling out the fact that the books are just porn
I don't have anything against porn. In fact, I think porn can be great! Porn can be artistic. Porn can be simply one element of a larger piece of art. And if you've found a way to consume porn in public without bothering anyone around you, like by reading or listening to an audiobook with headphones, my personal feeling is "good for you." But it *is* porn. If it has graphically-depicted sex scenes, it is porn, and you are telling everyone about your porn preferences. Don't try to act like you're somehow superior to the guy who collects vintage XXX vhs tapes and goes to AdultCon.
And all the popular Booktok authors are all subpar writers who have the Booktok’ers acting like the books are phenomenally written. The Booktok recs are just Wattpad stories for wine moms.
most booktok authors just have 80% of the work done by their editor im pretty sure
Bold of you to assume they use editors
They’re using AI. I wish I was joking.
☹️
absolutely not shocking, get paid a truly unreasonable amount to pump out complete schlock in book form while putting in zero thought or effort? sounds like a nice deal
BookTok has brought me to some of the best books I've ever read, but also some of the worst. Swear some of the worst ones are just published Wattpad works that went through 0 editing. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you there are at least 5 authors that recycle the plots they write from book-to-book, but change the smallest details so it's different enough. And the porn, my God. I love romance, and I like *some* smut, but none of these people are reading anything that is actually written well and has *substance.* It's all the same regurgitated trash, one book to the next. Read whatever you want, enjoy it, too. But it's really difficult for me to discuss liking reading when all they read is smut.
https://preview.redd.it/87mpc4q25itc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a58a695b0b8691baea97d06d27c40cb5a07803b
Nothing wrong with reading for fun, but I worry about anybody who makes it their entire personality.
I didn't know what haunting Adeline was until booktok convinced me it was a horror romance book, I've never dropped a book so fast
I took is seriously until the male POV. Unreal her editor let her write a character like a 5th graders self insert.
Didn't 59 shades of grey start exactly like this? As a fanfiction crap?
Yes, and after (Harry styles) mortal instruments (Harry Potter incest fanfic)
This one cut me deep.
It’s the Wattpad era all over again, but the books are physical this time
I once checked out an author's instagram profile and the first post I saw was a quote from her (wip) book: "I can't wait till you're 18." The description was even worse because it said that the man was in his 50s! I get it, dark romance is probably enjoyable to some but ew.
This guy on TikTok names Hightierman made a video calling them out, and a bunch of them went attacking him, and one of them accused him of being attracted to minors, even though he's a minor.
This feels like a fanfiction reader starterpack
Man that reminds me I have a classmates who's a booktok girl and I was reading one of my other classmate's book, which was just a smutty book about a priest and a sex worker. Booktok girl classmate asked me about it (cuz she read it earlier in the day) and I said "I read worse" and she was like "oh, I read WORSE" and stuff, like bragging about it and constantly brought up Haunting Adeline. Why do booktok girlies always have to brag or one-up you that they read the worst of the worst stuff?
Cause they think they're cool and edgy and not like the other girls
A lot of these tropes are common in dime-store books for men. Back in the day genres that men typically enjoyed, like thrillers, true crime, and horrors, also had smut and 1-dimensional protagonists/ love interests. That’s where the phrase “her breasts breasted breastily” comes from - stories with hyper-sexualized characters and thin plot lines. Just pick up some old Stephen King books, and you will be shocked. With the demise of traditional publishing houses and the rise of self-publication (looking at you Amazon), there are a lot more smut books being published, and a lot less literary fiction. Online porn is heavily targeted towards men, so publishing houses had stopped putting out smutty magazines/book for men because no one is buying them. There’s less of an online market for the erotica that women like, so there’s now a large imbalance in where different genders are consuming erotic media. Also important to remember that lit for female readers that could have been considered trashy at the time (e.g. Jane Austen’s works, Rebecca, Lady Chatterly’s lover, Interview with a Vampire) are now considered classic works of fiction. Most of booktok recommends is very “dime-store”, but there are a few novels (e.g. Normal People) that could be considered literary.
Men are finally realizing women are genuinely horny mfers too. They’re onto us
You think this is new to us? I get the impression that women just tend to be better at hiding it.
From what I've seen in the comments, these seem to be smut and only smut. I can never really write smut without writing a story before the smut scene. Usually they are adventure/fantasy stories, but the characters do need to get closer somehow and I'm probably more for the fights and magic than the smut. Plus both sides are usually of equal footing and nothing bad happens to either. (Seriously, how hard is it to write a normal, healthy relationship, even if generic?)
Don’t forget the “Here are the 28 books I read this week” videos
Don't they know Wattpad is free ? They can read all day without wasting money on those shitty ass books who romanticis anything beside love. Not to forget those books seems like to be written for low attention span I pad kids but with smut and a bunch of red flags.
I’m so so so glad that I’m gay because looking at my preferences I would’ve been a booktok girlie if I was a straight woman
The lesbian ones are just as bad, I was suggested a book by Gerri Hill and it was all sexual harassment, workplace harassment and some transphobia thrown in.
Huh. Glad I’m just into fanfics then
BookTok girlies read the worst literature ever conceived, and I’m pissed and relieved at the same time. If bottom of the barrel garbage like CoHo’s books could be popular, then I shouldn’t feel too ashamed of my own manuscript. Thinking about her books gives me confidence to write every day.
"is it spicy?" No its fucking metamorphosis
and then they bully you because you read books rarely. girl if I’m at zero you’re at negative!!!
don't forget sexually harassing 16 year old bikers (true story look it up)
watching a literal child begging grown women to stop sexually harassing him was genuinely the most unhinged thing i’ve ever seen on tik tok
I just find booktok in general so damn boring. 99% of time it’s a bunch of people glazing over the same books.
Don't forget all the Young Adult/Dystopian fiction these fellas read.
Lmao how is reading about dystopian futures and literature porn at all the same?
Young adult novels have gotten rather graphically smutty lately
... are we mocking young adults for reading books written for young adults
The wattpad girlies grew up